Pushing Owen's Buttons
by badly-knitted
Summary: Just because a device is small and looks remarkably familiar, doesn't mean it can't cause Torchwood a whole heap of trouble, as Owen and Ianto discover! Written for Challenge #108: Fast-Forward at fan flashworks.


**Title:** Pushing Owen's Buttons

 **Author:** badly-knitted

 **Characters:** Ianto, Owen, Jack, Tosh, Gwen

 **Rating:** PG-15

 **Word Count:** 4359

 **Spoilers:** Nada.

 **Summary:** Just because a device is small and looks remarkably familiar, doesn't mean it can't cause Torchwood a whole heap of trouble!

 **Content Notes:** Owen does like swearing…

 **Written For:** Challenge #108: Fast-Forward at fan_flashworks.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Torchwood, or the characters.

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 **Guest** on _A Weird Experience_ : Fear not, I don't kill Ianto. He might get a bit battered and bruised, but he always survives and recovers. Jack would be cross with me otherwise ;)

Thank you!

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 **Guest** on _Manipulation_ : Thank you! Creepy was what I was aiming for!

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OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

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"So what is it?" Ianto called out to Owen as he pickled his way across the rock hard, rutted field to where the medic stood, staring down at the latest object to fall through the Rift.

"Dunno," Owen replied, hands jammed deep in his jacket pockets against the bitter cold. "Looks sorta like a universal remote. It's got a shitload of buttons anyway."

Arriving beside Owen, Ianto crouched down and studied the object without touching it. Torchwood agents knew better than to touch anything that fell through the Rift with bare hands, at least not until it had been declared safe for handling.

"Huh. Maybe that's all it is. Can't be too careful though. Wait here while I get a containment box. Don't want to lose it."

"God forbid!" Owen agreed. It had taken them more than two hours of searching in freezing winter temperatures made worse by a strong wind, to locate the small device in the vast expanse of the search area. Not knowing what they were looking for, or its precise location since the cold seemed to be affecting communication with the Hub, they'd been forced to start at opposite ends of the ploughed field and work inwards, furrow by furrow. Everything looked the same and the wind would likely blow away anything they left as a visible marker, so it made sense for one of them to stay put. Owen wasn't happy about having to spend even longer standing out in the biting wind, but Ianto, with his longer legs, could probably get to the SUV and back faster. Besides, he had the keys. "Fine. Just don't take all bloody day about it!"

Chuckling, Ianto hurried off, heading in the direction of the SUV, parked by the side of the road, slipping and sliding occasionally on treacherous icy patches. He'd just closed the boot and was starting back to Owen's position, containment box and protective gauntlets in hand, when the first flakes of snow started to drift down, getting heavier by the second. Looked like they were in for a blizzard, pretty soon they wouldn't be able to see a thing.

"Forget it!" Owen yelled as loud as he could against the wind, his voice faint in the cold air. Pulling his sweater sleeve down over his hand because he'd stupidly left his gloves back at the Hub, he snatched up the device and started to run towards Ianto, stumbling and slipping, trying to reach the SUV before visibility was lost completely.

It was a close thing. He turned his ankle on the uneven ground several times, barely managing not to fall, and the last hundred metres he could barely make out the hedge bordering the road, let alone anything less substantial. But Ianto was calling his name, guiding him as best he could, and at last Owen saw a dark figure looming before him just before he collided with it. They both tumbled to the ground in the wet snow, the device almost slipping out of Owen's precarious grip and hitting Ianto in the chest even as it made contact with the bare skin of Owen's wrist. A burning sensation stung his hand and ran up his arm but he ignored it, thinking it was from the cold and the impact.

"You okay?" he asked Ianto, scrambling off the other man's legs.

"Aside from having most of the breath knocked out of me. Thanks for that, by the way. You?"

"Fuckin' freezing, but I'm not lost in the blizzard, so that's a plus. Good thing you've got a voice like a foghorn," he joked, snapping open the containment box, dumping the little gadget in and closing the lid. Ianto unlocked the car and they piled in, slamming the doors behind them quickly to keep the worst of the cold out. Owen leant around to shove the containment box into the back, then slumped into his seat and looked at Ianto. Both were wet from the snow and half frozen, but they were used to it; such was the life of a Torchwood employee. Still, with the engine running and the heat turned on full blast, their hands and feet were soon thawing out and steam was rising from their clothes.

"Sauna in a car," Owen smirked. "Nice!"

"Never let it be said that Torchwood doesn't know how to treat the workforce," Ianto agreed with a chuckle.

Turning the windscreen wipers on high speed, he flicked on the headlights and cautiously pulled out onto the deserted country road. It wouldn't do them any good trying to wait out the weather; it looked like the snow had set in for the rest of the day. Much more sensible to head back to Cardiff before the roads became impassable. The SUV was well stocked with emergency survival gear, but that didn't mean either of them wanted to be in a situation where they had to use it.

The drive back to the Hub was slow going and they were passing through Splott before they managed to regain contact with the Hub. Snow was still falling steadily, but because the city's roads had been recently gritted, it wasn't really settling much, so the final part of their journey didn't take long at all. Almost before they knew it, Ianto was pulling into Torchwood Three's underground garage, where Jack was waiting for them, with steaming mugs of tea liberally laced with brandy. Or was that brandy with a dash of tea?

"There is a God," Owen groaned in appreciation as he sipped his drink. "Ah, that hits the spot! Right, I'm for a hot shower. Have fun, boys. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" With that, he ambled off in the direction of the main Hub, leaving Jack and Ianto alone in the garage.

"See?" Jack quipped to Ianto, who was cradling his own mug in both hands despite having been mostly warmed by the car's heater. "Owen thinks I'm a God!"

"Don't let it go to your head, Jack. He'd say that to anyone who gave him the good alcohol."

Jack pouted at once again being denied godhood in Ianto's eyes. He'd been trying for weeks to get Ianto to admit he was a sex god, to no avail. By now he'd reached the point where being thought any kind of god would do.

"So, did you at least find what came through the Rift or is it still out there buried beneath the snow?"

"We got it. Nothing to get thrilled about though, looks like a remote control from a few years in the future." Ianto handed Jack his empty mug and reached into the back seat of the SUV for the containment box. "I'll drop it off for Tosh to take a look at, then I'm going to take a shower and get changed." He'd pulled on jeans, a sweater and work boots for the jaunt into the country, in deference to the wintry weather, but unlike the rest of the team, he didn't consider casual clothes to be appropriate work attire.

"I can take it to Tosh if you want to get to the showers before Owen uses all the hot water," Jack offered.

"That's an offer I'm not going to refuse." Ianto leant in to give Jack a quick peck on the lips, simultaneously shoving the small containment unit against Jack's chest, forcing him to grab it with his free hand. "Thanks."

"You're welcome!" Jack called to Ianto's retreating back. "Huh, you'd think I'd get more respect, being the boss," he muttered, following in Ianto's wake.

Jack reached the main Hub just in time to see Ianto vanishing down the stairs towards the showers. Much as he would have liked to join his lover and indulge in some steamy shower fun, he didn't think Ianto would appreciate it, not with Owen there too. Ianto was open-minded, but he drew the line at spectators, especially if they were colleagues. Sighing wistfully, Jack plodded over to Tosh's workstation.

"Fair Toshiko, I come bearing gifts!" He dumped the box down on top of some files.

"Oh, they found it?"

"Looks that way. Don't get your hopes up though, looks like it's probably near-future earth tech, nothing of earth-shaking importance."

"It's still interesting," Tosh said brightly. "Seeing the way familiar items are going to evolve over the coming years."

Jack brightened and planted a kiss on the top of Tosh's head. "That's my Toshiko, ever the optimist. Well, enjoy. See what you make of it and we'll all get together over lunch in the boardroom."

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OoOoOoO

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Tosh hustled into the boardroom just as Ianto was handing out coffee and Gwen was distributing takeaway containers. It was definitely a day that called for a hot lunch. She slid into her seat and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before opening the Styrofoam box in front of her and digging in.

"So," she announced, waving a chip vaguely. I've run a full battery of tests on the device Owen and Ianto found." She looked down the table at Jack. "You were right. As far as I can tell, it's an ordinary remote control, just a little more compact than the ones we're used to, probably from a few years in the future. It has all the expected buttons: play, stop, fast-forward, rewind, pause, skip and so on… there are some other buttons I haven't been able to identify, but they probably relate to functions that are unique to the device it's designed for."

"Great," Owen grumbled. "We went through all that, freezing our arses off and risking frostbite, for something that probably fell down the back of someone's sofa." He took a gulp of coffee. "It's safe, right? I mean, nothing harmful about it?"

Jack frowned. "Why? Something happen out there that you two haven't told me?"

"It started snowing heavily before I could get back to Owen with the containment box, so he had to improvise. But he pulled his sleeve over his hand; there was no direct contact with his skin. Right Owen?"

"Right." Owen nodded. "Except, maybe when I ran into you," he glanced at Ianto, "I lost my grip and it might have just brushed my arm. I'm not sure though, I was so bloody cold I could barely feel a thing."

"Well, I did comprehensive scans and it's saturated with Rift energy, but I didn't detect any harmful radiation, microbes or anything else that could pose a health risk. I don't think you have anything to worry about, Owen." Tosh smiled reassuringly at the medic, who nodded back at her.

"Thanks, Tosh. Not that I was worried, just can't be too careful in this game."

"Is it okay to just enter it into the archives now?" Ianto asked.

"I don't need to do anything else with it. You can collect it from my workstation whenever you're ready for it," Tosh smiled.

They spent the rest of their lunchtime discussing non-work related subjects and when they'd all finished eating, they each drifted away to continue their own work, none of them giving another thought to the device.

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OoOoOoO

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Some time later, bored and with nothing to do because the weather was interfering with his internet connection, Owen went down to the archives intent on annoying Ianto, one of his favourite pastimes. He found the archivist studying the device they'd found, logging its characteristics for its file: dimensions, weight, colour, full description including diagrams and/or photographs… The information in Ianto's archives was always very detailed, even for items that couldn't be identified.

"It's a remote control, why can't you just put 'remote control' and be done with it?"

"Because it wouldn't be accurate, and if I don't keep accurate records, we might not be able to locate what we need when we need it."

"Why would we need to find a remote control? And anyway, why would it be hard to find something filed under 'remote control'?"

"Because," Ianto said patiently, "it's not the only remote control down here. There are one hundred and thirty seven items down here that are remote control devices of one kind or another. This makes one hundred and thirty eight. What happens if the object this is designed to control falls through the Rift and we need to stop it doing something dangerous? Are we supposed to try them all at random until one works?"

"Got an answer to everything, don't you, smartarse?" Owen folded his arms across his chest and leant against the wall beside Ianto's worktable in his archive cubbyhole.

"Was there something you wanted, Owen? Or are you just being an annoying prat?"

"What do you think?" Owen smirked evilly.

"I think you're trying to keep me from getting my work done." Ianto jokily pointed the remote control at Owen and pressed 'fast-forward'. "Go away already."

Owen jerked away from the wall, his arms waving erratically. He was speaking, but his voice came out high pitched and jabbering, like a tape recording speeded up, and Ianto couldn't understand what he was saying. Abruptly, he swung around to the doorway and walked rapidly and jerkily away through the archives. Ianto stared at his retreating form, then looked at the remote in his hand. Quickly he pressed 'stop'. Owen froze in mid-step and Ianto's eyebrows vanished into his hairline. Tentatively, he pressed 'rewind' and watched as Owen walked rapidly backwards into the small office, swivelled so his back was to the wall, flailed about a bit, jabbered in reverse, refolded his arms and leant against the wall. Ianto stabbed at the 'play' button.

"What do you think?" Owen smirked evilly.

"I think something seriously weird is going on." Ianto frowned at the remote and scratched his head. "What just happened?"

"What're you on about? Nothin' just happened. You asked if I was being an annoying prat, I replied, and here we are."

"No, that's not what happened. You speeded up and headed out of here, then I pressed the rewind button and you came back."

"You feelin' alright, mate?" Owen unfolded his arms and pushed away from the wall. "Sounds like you had a bit of an hallucination. I should probably check you out."

"There's nothing wrong with me, it's you I'm worried about. You said this touched your bare arm when you mowed me down out there." Ianto waved vaguely in the general direction of 'out there'."

Owen threw his arms up in the air. "Nothing happened! And I only said it might have touched me. My arm's fine, see?" He waved both arms around.

"And you felt nothing?"

"Just a bit of a burn from the cold, lasted a couple of seconds tops. Nothin' to be concerned about."

"I'm not so sure about that."

"Look, I think I should check you out, maybe you hit your head when I knocked you down, could be a mild concussion."

"I'm fine, I definitely didn't hit my head; I'd remember if I had."

"Not necessarily, not if you have a concussion. You coming up to the med bay?"

"No. I want to figure out what's going on."

"Fine!" Owen threw his arms in the air again, looking exasperated. "I'll just go tell the boss that you're being a stubborn bastard and let him convince you!" Owen swung around, stalked through the door and headed away.

Ianto aimed the remote at Owen's back and pressed 'fast-forward'. Owen's steps speeded up and Ianto jogged after him, hitting play when the medic was halfway up the first flight of stairs. Owen took two more steps upward, then faltered, confused.

"How the hell did I get here?" He turned around and saw Ianto standing at the foot of the steps, grinning and pointing the remote at him. A finger hovered over a button… "What are you doing?"

"An experiment."

He pressed the button and Owen blinked. Ianto was gone.

A hand tapped his shoulder, making Owen nearly leap out of his skin and spin around. "Jesus, Teaboy! Give me a heart attack, why don't ya? How the fuck did you do that?"

Ianto shrugged. "I put you on pause."

"Stop muckin' about."

"I'm not. You're remote controlled!"

Before Owen could do anything, Ianto was pressing another button.

"Don't!"

Well, Ianto assumed that was what Owen yelled, but as he'd just pressed 'mute' there was no sound. Owen's eyes went comically wide; he clutched at his throat and tried to yell.

Complete silence.

Snatching the remote from Ianto's hand, Owen aimed it at himself and stabbed repeatedly at the 'mute' button, to no avail. He couldn't make a sound. He pointed it at Ianto and pressed one button after another, but nothing happened.

"Give it here." Ianto reached for the remote, but Owen backed off. "I don't think it'll work for you, so if you want your voice back…" Owen stopped, scowling, thinking things through. Finally, mouthing something Ianto thought might be 'Okay, you prick!' he handed the remote back to his colleague. At that moment he wasn't willing to think of Ianto as a friend.

"Look, I wasn't trying to hurt you or anything, just to convince you that there's nothing wrong with me, you're the one with the problem. Something happened that's made this," he waved the remote control, "work on you. Now we need to figure out why, whether or not it affects anyone else, and how to undo whatever it's done, okay? For that we'll need Tosh's help, probably Jack's too. You with me?"

Owen nodded.

"Okay, I'll un-mute you, just please don't yell." He pressed the button once more and stared at Owen. Owen just stared back. "Well? Say something!"

"Shut up. I'm trying to think of a suitable insult, you pillock! Give me that, I don't trust you with it." He snatched the remote again and stomped off up the stairs. Ianto rolled his eyes and followed.

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OoOoOoO

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"Jack?" Ianto called as he and Owen stepped out into the main Hub. "We have kind of a problem."

"What kind of a problem are we talking about?" Jack sauntered out of his office and leant on the catwalk railings.

"Not entirely sure, but now Owen works by remote control." Coming up behind Owen, Ianto whisked the remote out of his grasp, earning a startled cry of "Give it back!", and pressed 'pause', making the other man freeze in place even as he was reaching out to reclaim the device. Ianto backed off to a safe distance, and with another click of the button, set his beleaguered colleague back in motion. Owen's hand closed on thin air and he looked around wildly, trying to locate Ianto.

"Stop doing that!"

Up on the catwalk, Jack chuckled. "Very funny, guys. You had me going for a moment there!"

"Oh, I wish it was a joke," Owen said feelingly. "That bloody Teaboy of yours is having a high old time messing around with that bleedin' remote! He'd have me jumpin' through hoops if he could!"

"I don't think there's a button for that." Ianto studied the remote. "Haven't tried this one yet though!" He prodded at the button marked 'Next' and watched as Owen blinked out, reappearing further into the Hub. Interesting.

"Whoa!" Jack sounded more than a little started; Owen just looked put out.

"Well, as I was saying…" Ianto looked up at Jack. "Kind of a problem."

Jack made his way down the steps and over to Ianto, holding his hand out. "Give me that."

Ianto handed over the remote control and shoved his hands in his pockets as Jack studied the small device. "Huh. Looks perfectly ordinary." He aimed it at Ianto and pressed 'fast-forward'. Ianto remained where he was.

"Owen already tried that."

Jack tried the little gadget out on Tosh, then Gwen, to no effect. He pointed it at Owen, pressing 'pause', but when the medic continued to move, he shook it and looked at it in disappointment. "Doesn't seem to work for me."

Ianto took the remote back and pointed it at Jack, pressing 'skip'. Nada. Turning to Owen, he pressed the 'skip' button again.

"Argh! You're a dead man, Jones!" Owen yelled as he started skipping around the Hub.

"Oops! Sorry, Owen, didn't know it would do that," Ianto called cheerily, pressing 'play' to return the other man to normal.

"I'll get you for this, you bastard!" Owen snarled, balling his hands into fists and stalking towards the other men.

"Owen, that's enough!" Jack snapped. "Focus on the problem at hand. What exactly happened during the retrieval?"

It was Ianto who spoke. "It started snowing. I was over at the SUV getting the containment box; Owen was out in the field keeping an eye on the device. He pulled his sweater sleeve over his hand to avoid contact with his skin, picked the device up and ran towards me. He was maybe two hundred metres away from me, and before he covered half the distance, the snow was so thick I couldn't see him. I kept calling his name; he followed my voice and ran headlong into me, knocked me flat on my back. Something, presumably this," he waved the remote control, "jabbed me in the chest, here." He rubbed his sternum. "I'll probably have a lovely bruise."

Owen was nodding. "Yeah, nearly knocked it out of my hand, the end of it might've touched my wrist." He pulled up his sleeve. "If it did, it didn't leave a mark. I felt something though, just for a second, a burning, cold sensation along my forearm. But we were on the ground in a snowstorm, I figured I just got some snow up my sleeve; there was enough of it about."

"Can you remember if you pressed any buttons?" asked Tosh, taking the remote from Ianto and studying it.

"I don't know. I could barely feel my hands."

"Which way around were you holding it?" Tosh looked at him expectantly, holding the remote out to him. "Show me."

Owen took it and turned it so it was pointing towards him. "Like this."

"So when you ran into Ianto, the operator end would have hit him and the sensor end would have touched you."

"Maybe."

"I don't recognise all the symbols. Some are obvious, some are even in English, but there's a whole group of buttons with symbols that don't match anything we use at present. I don't want to play with them when I don't know what they do, and I don't want to dismantle it in case it harms Owen."

"Does it have a power source that could be removed?" asked Jack.

"I didn't see any sign of a battery compartment when I was photographing it for the archives," Ianto replied.

Tosh looked it over. "There doesn't seem to be any way to open it."

"So what do we do? Just put it in the secure archives and leave it? I mean, if no one can press the buttons, it can't affect Owen, right?" asked Gwen.

"In theory. But what if it runs out of power? Will Owen suddenly switch off?" Tosh was frowning, worried. "No, we need to sever the three-way connection between the remote control unit, Owen and Ianto."

"How do you suggest we do that?" Owen grumbled.

"I don't know."

Ianto took the remote control from her and Owen took a step back.

"You better not be planning anything!"

"Relax, Owen, I just want to look at the options." He studied the array of buttons thoughtfully. Owen moved closer to look too. Suddenly, Ianto grinned. "Yes!"

Before anyone could move, Ianto grabbed Owen's arm, jabbed the device against his wrist and pressed a button. Owen yelped and jerked back, rubbing his arm and glaring angrily at Ianto.

"That stung! What the fuck did you just do?"

Ianto pointed the remote at him and pressed 'fast-forward', but Owen didn't move; neither did anyone else when he tried pointing it at them. He passed it to Owen. "You try."

Owen did as asked, but once again, nothing happened. It seemed their little problem had been fixed.

"How did you do that?" Tosh asked, amazed.

Ianto shrugged sheepishly. "I just pressed the 'reset' button."

Tosh laughed. "Genius!"

"Better put it in the secure archives and leave it there, just to be safe," Ianto said. "Amusing as it might have been, short-term, I'm sure none of us want anything like that happening again."

"Damn right!" Owen agreed. "It's not funny havin' someone control you like a puppet!"

"Yeah, sorry about that, Owen."

"You fixed it, so I guess I won't kill you, this time. Buy me a stiff drink when this snowstorm stops, and we'll call it even. I need some heavy-duty alcohol after this." He passed the remote to Jack.

"I'll go one better and buy you the whole bottle. Jack? You want to come with? I might need a hand getting Owen home."

"Don't mind if I do." Jack waggled his eyebrows. "Could be fun."

"Nah," Owen cut in, "just buy me the bottle and I'll take it home with me. Don't want to watch the two of you pawing at each other all evening."

"Suit yourself, it's your loss." Jack tossed the remote in the air and caught it. "Guess I'd better store this. Coming, Ianto?"

"You've forgotten the password to the secure archives again, haven't you?"

"I had no trouble remembering it before you changed it!"

As the two headed off towards Jack's office, the rest of the team heard Jack say, "I wonder if this would work on Weevils…"

"No, Jack! No way are you trying that!" Ianto replied sounding horrified.

"Okay, okay, it was just an idea!"

Owen shook his head. "Don't know how Teaboy puts up with him."

"Just another of Torchwood's mysteries," Tosh said with a smile

Working for Torchwood was never going to be what anyone would describe as normal, but really, who would want it to be? With a shrug of his shoulders, Owen headed down to the autopsy bay. He should probably do some work at some point, but first, maybe a little nap would be a good idea. After all, it had been rather a busy day.

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The End


End file.
